


Walls

by Taste_is_Sweet



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 22:02:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dorian, um. Well, you can see, um," Rudy faltered and nearly fumbled the forcep-things. Forcep-things which were sticking out from inside Dorian's <i>head</i>, and Kennex almost smacked his hands away before Rudy hurt—before he damaged what was left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walls

**Author's Note:**

> For [therearewords](http://therearewords.livejournal.com/), who offered the original plot bunny: _What happens behind The Wall? Definitely something awful, because when John finally finds Dorian again, he's extremely traumatized. And what can traumatize an android?_
> 
> I'm sure this isn't quite what she was hoping for, but it's what leaped (leaped! Like bunnies! Ha!) immediately to mind. And I'd definitely say this counts as trauma.
> 
> And Detective John Kennex is definitely angry.

"Where is he?" Kennex stalked into Rudy's workshop. "Stahl said she'd found him, but he's not—" He stopped, dread flooding through him like ice water and freezing the words in his mouth. He ignored Rudy's anxious ratface and the gut-churning sympathy in Maldonado's eyes; just forced his blood to move again so he could get his feet to take him the rest of the way to the worktable, where Rudy was examining Dorian's head. 

Just his head. What was left of it.

"What happened?" Kennex said, and that thready, fear-hushed voice didn't sound like his own at all. He groped for anger instead, yanked it up like a shield. Dorian hated how he did that ( _Children can sense electromagnetic fields, John_ ), but anger got results and fear got you nothing but dead. "Where's the rest of him?" Kennex snarled and that was better. He looked around, but there was nothing, nothing left but the head. " _Where's the rest of him?_ "

"John," Maldonado said, too sympathetic to be admonishing. Was that why she was down here? She almost never went to Rudy's little bat-cave beneath the station. Was she there for _moral support?_ Did she really think he was going to lose it, just because his robot got torn apart?

"Dorian, um. Well, you can see, um," Rudy faltered and nearly fumbled the forcep-things. Forcep-things which were sticking out from inside Dorian's _head_ , and Kennex almost smacked his hands away before Rudy hurt—before he damaged what was left.

"He went over the Wall, John," Maldonado said.

Kennex snapped his attention to her. "What the hell do you mean, 'he went over the Wall'?"

Ruddy nodded so fast it looked like his head was bouncing on his skinny neck. "It's true," he said, like that was what Kennex had the problem with. Kennex swung his gaze back to him and Rudy swallowed. "He went over the Wall. That's, um, why we couldn't track him."

"Why would anyone take a police-bot over the Wall?" Kennex's eyes kept drifting to Dorian's head, the wide gash across his face like he'd been hit so hard the skin had split over the artificial skull underneath. A flap was hanging down like torn cloth. Kennex kept his hands clenched so he wouldn't try to smooth it into place.

Most of the back of Dorian's head was gone, wires and bits of things dribbling out. No purple or lilac or any stupid-colored lights glowed anywhere anymore. His eyes were dull, flat black, like they were before Rudy had revived him. Only they didn't look like Dorian was waiting to be turned on; they looked like Dorian was dead.

Kennex tore his gaze away—again—because Dorian wasn't dead. No way in hell. And Maldonado had been talking and he'd missed half of it. "Wait, back up. You said he went by himself?"

Maldonado frowned. "Yes. I just told you that. We were able to track Dorian to the Wall, but he went off-grid almost as soon as he jumped over."

"Why the hell would he do that? That's suicide!" Kennex turned to Rudy again. "It wasn't suicide," he said, not making it a question because he didn't even want to consider it. "He didn't… This wasn't a synthetic soul thing."

Rudy blinked mournfully at him. "We're still, ah, trying to ascertain that possibility."

"Ascertain that _possibility?_ "

Rudy actually took a step back, all but gulping. "I'm not saying he attempted suicide!" he said, speaking fast. "But, but, you see, there doesn't, um, there doesn't seem to be any reasonable explanation for why Dorian would go over the Wall. Especially, ah, without telling anybody."

 _Without telling you_, was what Rudy actually meant. He was too scared to say it out loud, but Kennex could hear the accusation anyway, as if Dorian had just delivered it with that distantly smug smile of his. ( _The MX. You shot it because it insulted me. You like me._ )

Kennex took a step forward. "Dorian wouldn't go anywhere without telling me. Not unless something was wrong with him or someone got into his system." He didn't really intend for his voice to have that particular _I will kill you_ pitch, but the way Rudy paled was pretty satisfying.

"Hey," Maldonado snapped. "Cool it. Taking Rudy's head off isn't going to help."

"Yeah, well, he already took Dorian's head off, so maybe it will." It was a dumbass thing to say, but Dorian's head was being treated like a third-grade science project and so far no one had managed to tell Kennex anything that made any sense.

"That wasn't me!" Rudy said. "This is all we were able to retrieve."

"Wait, you mean Stahl just found his _head?_ " And God, was he suddenly completely incapable of doing more than just repeating what anybody told him? "Did he…" Kennex stared at Maldonado. "Did someone _punt_ him back onto our side?"

"No, it wasn't like that," Maldonado said quickly, maybe because she'd seen Kennex's expression. "We know that Dorian was…mostly intact when he came back over the Wall, but he apparently collapsed shortly afterwards."

"Went offline, technically," Rudy said, looking marginally more comfortable now that they were back to his expertise. "All DRNs are programmed for emergency shutdown in case of severe damage or catastrophic power loss, to protect their memory storage."

"Memory storage—we can see what happened to him?"

Rudy did that bobbing-nod thing again. "Yes. I'm working on that now. It's a little tricky." He gestured at Dorian with a spastic jerk of his head. "As you can see, there wasn't much left."

"Kind of hard to miss," Kennex said. His voice was rough and he swallowed. He couldn't keep himself from touching Dorian anymore. The only completely intact piece of him was the shell of his left ear, but the synthetic skin was cold and waxy when Kennex ran his finger along the edge. Like plastic. "If Dorian got back over the Wall under his own steam, where's his body?" There, that sounded normal.

"Chopscavs," Maldonado said. Her mouth twisted. "They must've found him about the time we did. They were dismembering him right there in the street when Stahl showed up. She said she had to threaten to shoot one of them before they dropped the head, but the others managed to take off with the body."

"Chopscavs, huh?" Kennex took a deep breath, imagined the boiling rage escaping his nostrils like steam. "Stahl get any visuals?" He was pleased at how casual he sounded.

Maldonado nodded. "Her MX got all six of them."

"They been rounded up yet?"

"No. They weren't the priority." Maldonado was looking at him warily now; Maybe he wasn't quite as good with the casual as he'd hoped. Kennex did his best to keep his face professionally blank. "Stahl had strict orders to get Dorian back here."

"I know." He'd had the same orders too, not that he'd needed Maldonado to tell him to find his partner when Dorian had dropped off the face of the fucking planet. That wasn't the point. He looked at Rudy. "Can you fix him?"

"I think so," Rudy said. Then his eyes widened at Kennex's expression and he started the convulsive head-bobbing again. "I mean, yes. Yes I can. It may just take some time. I have to requisition a new body!" he added desperately when Kennex didn't stop glowering.

"Dorian is going to be fine, John," Maldonado said. She put her hand on his arm, her grip warm and gentling as if Kennex were about to break down in tears instead of put his highly-augmented foot through one of the work tables.

"I know," Kennex ground out. Of course he did. Dorian was a robot. They broke, you fixed them. No big deal.

"Good." Maldonado patted his arm and let go. "How about we let Rudy do his work, then?"

Kennex knew it wasn't a suggestion, but it didn't matter anyway. "Yeah, sure." He started walking out of the workshop. "Take care of him," he said to Rudy over his shoulder. That wasn't a suggestion, either.

Kennex smiled grimly to himself as he got into the elevator. Looked like he had some new plans for the afternoon. First he needed to see Stahl, and thank her for retrieving Dorian. Detective Paul would be hanging around her desk all goo-eyed, most likely. Kennex really hoped he made some kind of crack about what happened to Dorian. Right now he'd love an excuse to turn some asshole's face into pulp.

Of course, while he was thanking Stahl he'd also get those pictures from her MX. Then he'd find the chopscavs who were dumb enough to cut up a police-bot in broad daylight and show them first-hand what happened to the bad guys. If those school kids puked at the pictures of Johnny Horowitz, they'd need hospitalization if they saw what he was going to do to those botjackers.

 _Hospitalization._ Yeah, that sounded about right.

The chopscavs weren't the real targets, though, but Rudy said he'd have that info soon and Kennex could be patient if he had to be. If the reason was good enough. And once he knew who had fucked up his partner, he was going to ask for some time off. He was sure Maldonado would say he could take a few days.

He was going hunting.

 

END


End file.
